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Tigers pick up win over West Hall

The Tigers took care of West Hall, 2-1, Friday night to end the week 2-0.

Dawson County senior Nathan Blythe (7) dribbles the ball near mid-field in the first half of the Tigers' game against West Hall on Friday. Blythe would later score the game-winning goal on a penalty kick.
- photo by Colin Ochs

Colin Ochs

cochs@dawsonnews.com

Updated:
March 7, 2018, 11:52 a.m.

After a disappointing loss to Flowery Branch last week, the Dawson County varsity boys soccer team rebounded with two wins this week. A region-opening 1-0 win against
Union County on Feb. 27 and a 2-1 win over West Hall on March 2 improves Dawson
County’s record to 3-2 on the season.

“(I'm) very pleased with the guys,” Head Coach Derek Waters said.
“Just the mindset and the attitude change the guys have had as far as really
wanting to buy in and come together stronger as a team and as a unit.”

Last week’s game against Flowery Branch saw the Tigers
concede a goal less than a minute into the game. Dawson County was on the
opposite end of that spectrum Friday when forward Micheal Velasquez buried a
goal into the far corner of the net just over three minutes into the contest.

“That Flowery Branch game, giving up that goal so early kind
of deflated everything,” Waters said. “We lost any chance of high energy, high
level of play that we could. It just kind of deflated us, so today was much,
much better.

“We were able to come out and start strong. That’s kind of
what we’ve been working on the past week of practice was being able to start
faster and build an attack sooner which helped us a lot today.”

With less than two minutes remaining in the first half, West
Hall (4-3-1) committed a penalty inside the box resulting in a penalty kick for
Dawson County senior Nathan Blythe. The senior made no mistake, converting the
penalty to give the Tigers a 2-0 at halftime.

It’s a spot Dawson County has been in before, up 2-0 at
halftime against Murray County in the second game of the season, the Tigers
allowed three second-half goals to take a 3-2 loss.

“That’s one of the things as an assistant under Coach Lacey
that I learned really quickly that a 2-0 lead is one of the toughest things to
maintain in soccer,” Waters said. “Just because you know, especially at
halftime, you know against a well-coached team like (West Hall) that they’re
going to come out ready to go in the second half.”

Waters words rang true as West Hall maintained possession on
Dawson County’s side of the field for most of the second half. In response, the
Tigers went to a more defensive formation, crowding the middle of the field
making it tougher for the Spartans to get the ball through and finish their
attacks.

At about the mid-way point of the second half, West Hall was
able to break through the Tigers’ defense to cut the lead to 2-1, but unlike
the Murry County game, Dawson County was able to hold off the Spartans the rest
of the way thanks to a good coaching strategy and some key saves by goalkeeper
Braden Davison throughout the game to secure the win.

The Tigers will travel to face Greater Atlanta Christian March 9 and North Hall March 13.